Tuesday, May 27, 2014

I have been playing around with the new website's software and learning (albeit slowly) what I can and how to work things. I don't remember it being this hard to learn new things. Hopefully I'll have everything up and running smoothly in a few days. Small additions after that. Hardest part was settling on a theme and I'm not 100% sure on the one I picked. I'll keep looking.

Memorial Day weekend for everyone here in the USA. We certainly are thankful for what we have and try to say thanks, not just on this day but on every day that we can. Amy even decorated the yard up some. She's definitely more military- geared than I am.

It seemed like I spent most of my time working everywhere I could. I spent a lot of time working in the garden; weeding, cutting, trimming, more effing weeding, replanting (lost a tomato to something), mulching, fertilizing (10-10-10 is my choice.) I tilled around the potatoes, bush beans, and corn to weed them out some, hilled the potatoes some more, and soaked everything good. Surprisingly the corn has made an appearance and seems to be doing well.

I got the fence run between the boards for the beans to climb. But I now have Bean Beetles.

Yes I spilled the beans! Bag came open and poured out. I am too lazy to pick up all of the bean seed thinking that nothing would happen.

I did put up fencing for these peas yesterday.

I spent a little bit this weekend and got a daylily for my garden. Love me some daylilies.

Even the one in the front bed just started blooming out.

Well, a quick post at lunch. Do more later as the dogs and I will be hidden in the bedroom while The Wife hosts a party for something.

Sunday, May 18, 2014

That's what we are doing on the homestead this morning. We spent yesterday goofing morning around town; visiting the dealership to get an oil change, cruised the Dunn Farmers Market (got a plat of strawberries, more later) breakfast, big box store for a few things, and back home. We spent the afternoon working on craft projects and the garden some more. I will say that I am really going to give this a good effort this year. I think all of the rain last year pretty much did a lot of people in, lack of enthusiasm seeming permeating everywhere. And with the record- setting rain we had a few days ago, everyone is like "Shit." But an effort will be made.

I got all of the potato plants strawed out in the afternoon. I did encounter a few beetles here and there but not too many so I just picked them off and squished them as I went. Leave them like this until they are ready to come out of the ground.

Got the first cucumber bloom yesterday. These were a big bust for us last year so here's to crossing fingers for this year's harvest.

Amy did a lot of crafting yesterday and ended up finishing the chair idea of hers. We got two old chairs at the auction last weekend for $5.00 total and she turned one of them into this.

Onto the strawberries. We have been some good pickings so far this year on our strawberries and since we love them, we seem to eat a lot of them. The idea behind the plat purchase yesterday was so we could combine it with ours and can some jam. So that's what we are doing this morning, canning. And from observations (read tasting) it's going to be good. All in all we did (16) 8 oz. jars.

We have actually considered getting some more stuff in the ground and selling our wares plus other items at the Farmers Market. We'll kick it around some more. Naming it has come down to two choices; Woflandia Farms or WOF Dog farms.

Speaking of which. WOF of the week. We were outside working and guess who else wants out?

Friday, May 16, 2014

Cruised the garden yesterday evening and guess what; the bastard beetles were back on my potatoes with a vengeance. So today instead of crawling around for another 3 hours I decided to take a more direct approach.

This is how I originally spelled the word. Thank goodness for that squiggly red line. I must be getting dumber.

Here they are.

And here the go into my weapon of choice.

All said and done it took me about 20 minutes to do all of the plants. I made sure I got each stem up in the hose so as not to miss any of the little buggers. I am going to wait and take another good look in the morning and get any remaining family members then straw around all of the plants.

I let the carnage of vacuum hell and proceeded to cut on the tomatoes and do some more tying up, pulling weeds as I go. Actually got a few Romas set on now and the plants as a whole look a lot better than they did about a month ago. It hasn't been real warm yet except for a few random days so they should really take off soon when summer gets closer.

In off- hand dumbass news I was sitting in my office Thursday trying to add some flavoring to my water bottle and managed to get the red stuff everywhere, mainly because I am clumsy. Amy said it looked like a crime scene. So off to the store for a shirt. Bacon is good for me.

I have started working on a new blog site for this blog through using a Wordpress handler. It's been a looonnnggg time since I have messed around with this stuff (read Frontpage and Dreamweaver) and have at least settle on a theme. Slowly getting the hang of it though it may take a little while to get it done. www.tossing-dirt.com is the domain and I chose Fatcow as my web provider.

Sunday, May 11, 2014

Turned out to be a beautiful weekend and we sit here today enjoying the rented movies. Did a lot of work yesterday; weeding, pulling and killing bugs, muching, tying, etc. Sad to say but my main nemesis is back from last year, the dreaded Colorado Potato Beetle. I spent the better part of 2 hours crawling around on my hands and knees picking the larger ones and dropping them in a bucket of soapy water, squishing the smaller ones and inspecting each leaf of each plant looking for eggs on the underside. That's where they hide. Nothing really kills them although I did use some insecticidal soap a few days ago and that seemed to slow them down some.

There's the little shits now. Hopefully this will slow them down some.

Finally getting some buds on the tomatoes and peppers although the peppers aren't really taking off too well.

And in the midst of my looking around I found a little helper.

We have been picking a lot of strawberries. I mean a lot! Definitely been a bumper crop.

Spent Saturday morning at an auction and was able to pick up a few small things, including another heavy old seeder. Thought of hooking the dogs up to it and doing some work but sure as hell the ASPCA would be out here in no time.

Also found Squeak a truck but alas we didn't get it.

Pretty cool though. I remember as a young boy working at my dad's sheet metal shop climbing in under the hood and checking the oil as part of my mechanic duties everyday.

Oh, remember the corn I replanted? Still can't find the damn stuff. At least the squash is doing better.

Thursday, May 8, 2014

how to name this post. I was cruising today at lunch and found out that Granny of Granny's Family Garden (Annie's Kitchen Garden) had passed. I must say that it saddened me quite a bit. I never really corresponded with her but always had ideas from the way she did things; a wealth of knowledge you would say. I know the blogging community will notice a big loss. I have.http://annieskitchengarden.blogspot.com/2014/05/may-7-2014-goodbye-granny.html

Sunday, May 4, 2014

Busy on the homestead today, trying to get some things done before I headed out of town for a few days (back to that grind again :( )
Yesterday evening I tilled between all of the potatoes and bush beans to get the weeds down, then proceeded to till the whole patch where I "started" corn. Nothing was coming up save for maybe two plants. Maybe I got anxious and started them too early so I replanted some new seed from the store yesterday so we'll see how this works out. Strawberries are really coming on now and it looks to be a bumper crop this year. I meant to pick up a couple more plants as we seem to have a dead area in the bed but that will have to wait for the weekend. Also spent some time tying up some tomato plants and starting a few mellons. Let's take another tour shall we :)

I picked up some bags of mulch at the store and started to do all of the beds. I obviously didn't get enough as I wasn't really in the mood to carry too much that day. I also have been adding more signs to the garden, not so much for knowing what's where (except tomatoes) as for dressing it up a little. I even try to draw a picture on them.

I got the line hooked up and sprinklers ready for the pole beans. Probably be looking at a few weeks before setting up the netting.

DIL's herb garden. It will be a few weeks before this really starts setting out. Fingers crossed.

All in all looking pretty good so far. It's early, I know.

Front beds.

Amester (she was tired of The Wife) was good enough to get me some stakes Saturday at Cameron so I started making more signs. After the glue is set up, on to paint then into the garden.

Got a good picture of our Grand kitten, Gunner. I think things are settling down in the house now, thank goodness. He likes spending time out on the back porch.

WOF of the Week.

It's been a while for a W.O.T.W. I know, but how many pictures of horizontal dogs can one take?